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Archive for ‘twin cities’

i will tell you, if you want to be unique,
differently skewed and
especially noticed or adulated where you are,
dont be a poet.
coffee and beer are my fuel during this grey day;
opposites like that do attract, like defined words and me.
(Sunday morning coming down,
wrote this yesterday while
teaching students how to speak Midwestern English in other countries (plural).
i could say i am international by now, wont.)
(anyway) to get noticed, get a real job,
work very hard every day, and
mind your own personal business
in this capitalistic venture,
otherwise known as your broken dream land,
otherwise known as real life.
dont take photos to share on social media;
nor add filters for likes, #NoFilters.
nor wear a bunch of makeup
to make up for your flawed human makeup.
nah, you needn’t do that.
just be, thats really real and really noticed.
people think you got a problem then.
tell them to unplug and not scroll.
my breath applauds me, my feel stings as truth alone.
that would be unique in a world where going viral on CNN Breaking BS
or standing on 94 W or E rebelling pointedly,
maybe cutting off ambulance service to someones grandmas dilemma,
like the rest of the thoughtful group
over 12 peers turned to one loathsome local department,
under adjectives: fascist, systematic, murderers et al.,
is considered some sort of special star sticker and truly esoteric
and great advocacy and activism novel, true, poignant, necessary.
but i understand sort of, well i do…
it seems too obvious and you know it…
you do.
products of media brought to you by you and look at those pricey ads.
so go ahead and think,
how can i not be like them, working for someone who doesnt pay me,
the others that do the same thing (as others)
that i do, yet with more good friends
with more important memberships
with heavy solicitations–sell my books, ever heard of pulp?
pulping happens.
with more performances at more trendy publishing houses
at more hipster coffeehouses.
i also wrote a poem today that wont get noticed.
like everyone else(s).
it is bigger than pale generalizations.
more complex than a Saltine cracker
and its box–squarely.
you know, i wont put some same sign in my shitty yard
for people to like.
for i dread mowing and wont water for more work.
the neighbors enjoy my company already, go ask.
there isnt enough space on it already too,
to say what i want to say, with open meaning,
and it wont make the community feel better anyway
because no group backs it, i havent donated to prove i believe,
and because it would say: each individual should do better
themselves as a unique individual, individualists themselves.
because if it were that easy to fix the neighborhood, with signs,
then everyone would be doing it…
and if the doorhandle opens the door i won’t fix it either.
even if i kick the door in and the handle is still on it,
then probably the doorhandle still works.
like poetry–it doesnt take much really.
getting noticed though…
so i dont know what else to write,
that’s true or fiction or thought.
besides: nothing special here, just i notice(d)
and i think you should too.

this would make me empassioned, orimpassioned. i am passionate about this something…
that’s how i get
when neo-globalists
who’ve never left the states
try to fix
other people’s problems
with
their English language exclusively.
the irony of westernization; fixed only by itself. YOU SEE?
and that is what they call backwards and selfish.
tho, there will be no stories of this on the news.because just get out there and disrupt because.
and they should
call those who
think locally “nationalists” too.
a bunch of loud fools.
you know, somethings don’t translate.
you know, people might have different opinions.
this is how language works.
so when they/you designate
their/your ideas, ideations, and ideologies
as such, i just smh in realtime.
so silly, so stupid, so same.
that is why i am a where-ever-i-am-at-ist,
because i am right there,
i can attempt to understand
what i see and experience around me,
for me, for truth, for better.
maybe even for you…
but honestly, not for you (i don’t care)
or the tv (forget tv), i won’t facebook livestream it
or create a clever sign that
gets thrown away next day in some ironic carbon footprint
(that you too should actually hate)
after the post and the filter and the likes–fretter fakes.
and that is what i am passionate about,
or empassioned about, or impassioned about,
all that is around me
because i can touch it tangible,
as they said, i can feel the real,
i can set the clock next to the bed.
and there is something about language and labels.

i knew what it felt like to be a ghost,
or an earthbound flower,
all information, all the time
on these matters: doxing and politics,
when that is all we absorb in our bones.
where the oatmeal ran cold
below contemporary jazz notes
and a vase full of roses.
here were also books in layers
onioned out over our wooden shelves.
and dying temptation had me
money in my pockets–full,
rich like those other in-tune saps,
unwanting and vainglory lame,
found doing the same ways,
for another 8 years with no change.
then i read through it entirely,
a children’s book saved me.
Fox In Socks again, very closely, and smiled,
we don’t do that enough;
it’s lonely at the top,
it’s quiet at the top,
other people hate the top–what hate(?).
humor, the distasteful, slop.
i think about time and how it escapes me,
i think if i could make it stop
and smell the fancied spring flowers
i’d want to make it start again.
i’d know that they were never really there.
modern days of trials and errors
never let you live it down;
beauty never seen, a flower underground.

sunday, when candles burn,
when tired rugs sleep,
when time does nothing
but crawl forward
to the coming future,
when tomorrow is another monday,
much disliked, much despised,
and talk is always so drably
forlorn– such a tragedy.
this is when and how
i beg for ice 9,
i pray for a time machine
to instill religion in me better,
to make sunday slow sabbath.
i could smile longer.
i could be more kind.
i have faith in hope and fate
on this dark dreary sunday,
when i think of new seasons
as plasticed windows droop.

i read the newspaper
backwards today,
from the bottom up,
each sentence slowly,
word for word
left left left left…
one at a time
to make the story
come out differently,
better, in hopes
for posterity and that.
well, no such luck.
and on a rainy gray day.
when i reached the top
i found that
i was at today’s date,
& still confused,
& still wondering at
how fiction could appear
so viscerally spun.

when does the rationale come back?
this morning a skein flew easterly
as a stinky cat ate wet grass in cool air.
cooking shows and mall shootings.
there is still a lone shooter at large…
but not here, that was in Washington.
i probably won’t go shopping today anyway.
anyway cars moved past overgrown front lawns,
a radio played classically forgetful songs,
and seven:eleven was my wake up time.
nothing much for a saturday stay,
the police scanner glows on its stand.
i’ll eat leftovers of last night: pizza.
but i won’t talk on yesterday’s toils much.
rationale, certain hormones change minds
at times, they make me want to buy.
i’d go to Amsterdam–the pub, and drink
and talk of Irish counties and transport,
the weather and such in the back of a truck
what luck? crammed, called ignorant for
having viewpoints different, but does
that make you what they loudly say? Different.
(i put much thought in putting in much thought.)
probably not. probably doesn’t matter.
probably rationale skewed by language used,
delete the tweet, ah, but O’ the screenshots:
that is the way the local government works,
tho you Canot do that, or can you? Perhaps? IDK.
leaders, that term can be used very loosely;
leaders are people too, they come with faults.
pondered doxing most of the afternoon, true.
bribes, lines, demands, and political chides.
not much for the actual people proper.
a sort of smoke screen, photo cropper.
not too much to for me though…
Again, the birds and the cat and the neighbor.
i love everyone and their ideas, how could you not?
and when does the rationale come back?
people must have lost it calling other’s flaws
not factoring in their own, tho, not alone.
rationale has been lost for the masses.
but what is that? and who is going to interpret it as so?

Sitting, eyeing, on the green line east
at pull of rubber band force
from automatic closed doors,
this way going fast to St. Paul,
reading pulp & fodder & reviews–
rain taxi on such a fine day, muse,
truth as the second coming, we assume,
alone as this newborn child is,
before our welcome birthing days…
And these bells only go buzz
their purposeful bing accord,
and the hipsters trend all over
Twitter and Facebook storyboards,
and I read “Dessa”: as one name,
I am not too big to make real art,
hard looks and fresh lemon bitter.
I am here between twin cities
futzing with the magazine innards
tonguing sore mouth blisters
trying to find a schedule to go on mr…
Stories of contrast black and white
waiting on bleak blue dinged seats
and this line rolls along green,
in pale hot bright summer sun seen,
malaise in my stomach sits–pits,
Snelling, Hamlin, and Lexington,
sour as such sordid sentiment,
I bike to some new on old hopes
to pay cash for a tin roof owned,
I hope it’s not too far, still sitting,
still watching, waiting, thinking:
Do people really think they are fooling
anyone waiting at the scanner’s
edge to run up on the station
without paying the correct fare?
O, bad actors must have just forgot,
the commuter theatre is free today.

And they beckon
from their red plastic cages,
emboldened words and
colorful photographs—
begging as you go,
the hailing taxis or
the pothole-dodging bikers
and bouncing-stride
stepping pedestrians;
sometimes there is barely a thesis,
sometimes a brain fart,
sometimes a proclamation
as if the ten commandments
from God to Moses, still,
perhaps what we could simply
text and forget;
always the idea of gains
in money, though,
the purpose: profit, something
that comes in by trash ads,
not by dicey articles,
not by thought-provoking content,
in the back, paid for so that
freebie mags—these city pages,
can remain intact
and still forget to implement:
Meaning,
Reason,
Purpose.
Straight to the press!